Security Risk for CIA: Anthony Lake's Dubious Past

It may have been that the Good Lord was telling America something recently when He called hence the soul of Alger Hiss. It may be that that call to judgment on November 15th of one of our country's most notorious traitors was providentially timed as a reminder of the terrible cost of betrayal and a grim portent concerning high national security appointments soon to follow.

Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and the leadership of both parties in Congress, repeatedly ignored the hard evidence indicating that Alger Hiss was a dangerous traitor. Their failure to expose and prosecute him earlier in his sordid career resulted in untold harm to America's security and immeasurable tragedy for billions of people worldwide. Just two of his signal "accomplishments" — the Yalta agreement and the UN founding conference — condemned over a billion souls to communist tyranny and established the nascent world government structure that now threatens to destroy all national sovereignty. Unfortunately, Hiss was not alone; he had many comrades in high office who were never exposed or prosecuted. And he had numerous prominent patrons who praised, protected, and promoted him even after his treason was overwhelmingly apparent to all but the willfully blind.

That willful blindness was recently displayed by Anthony Lake, Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser and the President's designee to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Speaking on the November 24th edition of NBC's Meet the Press, Lake denied that the evidence of Alger Hiss' treason was "conclusive." In the same program, Lake minimized current Russian espionage efforts against the United States, stating that "they apparently are spying on us to a degree that we don't like." In brief, the would- be head of America's intelligence community sought to rehabilitate a traitor and displayed a remarkably high threshold of tolerance for the KGB's activities within this country.

Unfit Appointment

As we shall see, President Clinton's nomination of Anthony Lake on December 3rd, so soon on the heels of Hiss' departure, is an outrage matched only by the lack of outrage expressed by members of Congress, public policy "experts," and the "mainstream" media. Considering Lake's activities, allegiances, and associations over the past three decades, it is incredible that he would be considered for any federal government appointment, let alone for a position as incredibly sensitive and vital to our national security as director of the CIA. It is for certain that if background security checks worthy of the name were still being conducted, Tony Lake would not be able to obtain a clearance necessary for even a washroom attendant position at the CIA's Langley, Virginia headquarters.

Inasmuch as his appointment as Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser did not require Senate approval, Anthony Lake was spared the bruising confirmation hearings that deep-sixed his fellow New Left comrade, Morton Halperin, in Halperin's 1993 quest to claim an Assistant Secretary of Defense post. Halperin's radical, subversive record * proved too odious for what was then an even more liberal Senate than we have today. Which means there's hope for stopping Lake's potentially disastrous appointment.

It was with some small sense of relief that we observed the December 11th testimony of retiring CIA Director John Deutch before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) aggressively grilled Deutch for his apparent defense of Anthony Lake's role in deceiving Congress, the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the American people concerning the Clinton regime's secret policy of tacit approval for illegal Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia. Deutch backpedaled under the assault and tried to put a wholesome face on the Administration's dangerous subterfuge. Although he is stepping down as chairman of the committee, Senator Specter pledged that he would hold Lake accountable for that deception when the confirmation vote comes up in the 105th Congress. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), who is replacing Specter as chairman, has indicated that he also will be scrutinizing Lake's activities and duplicity in the "Iran- Bosnia" affair.

Deceptive Dealing

Syndicated columnist William Safire summarized the affair, and Lake's part in it: "Returning on Air Force One from Richard Nixon's funeral, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott told National Security Adviser Tony Lake that Croatia had asked for approval to smuggle Iranian arms into Bosnia — thereby breaking the embargo foolishly agreed to by the United States and its allies.

"This was a deniable double-cross, kept secret from the oversight committees of Congress: Give the Croats a green light, and never mind the influence Iran would gain in Europe.

"Lake circumvented the Defense Department and CIA by going into the president's cabin and getting Clinton's personal approval to instruct our ambassador to pretend he had 'no instructions.' This put the president in the position of telling the public that we could not break the embargo for fear of endangering the lives of our British and French allies — while encouraging a third party to endanger their lives" — not to mention encouraging that same Iranian third party to endanger the lives of American servicemen in Bosnia.

Understandably, this has a few senators upset. Others have voiced their concern over a possible mini- Whitewater scandal involving Lake's failure to follow instructions to divest himself and his wife of an energy stock portfolio which could leave him vulnerable to conflict-of-interest charges. Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE) expressed misgivings over Lake's ability to "show independence from the White House" as head of the CIA after having served in the Administration's policy formulating sphere, while others worried that he did not have the experience necessary to manage a large organization like CIA.

That's all well and good; the Bosnian arms gambit, the Lakes' personal financial dealings, and the nominee's "independence" and management talents are all areas deserving of senatorial attention. But it is a lot like preferring jaywalking and littering charges against a gang of vicious bank robbers because the notorious banditti failed to use the crosswalk and dropped some of their ill-gotten loot while running to their getaway car. Yet what critical attention has been directed at the Lake nomination has been almost entirely focused on concerns of the jaywalking variety.

The Washington Post reported on December 15th that Mr. Lake is now contrite for his misdeeds and "has told key senators that it was a mistake not to have told Congress about the presidential decision to wink diplomatically in 1994 when Croatia allowed Iranian arms to be shipped through its territory to Bosnia." According to the Post, "Lake's concession, which he made in phone calls over the last 10 days, is designed to make the hearings go more easily." In that much, at least, the Post may be telling the truth. Scarface Tony will be more than happy to cop a plea to jaywalking and littering, promise never to transgress again, and throw himself to the tender mercies of the Senate. And if the loyal opposition doesn't start soon to kick up a huge fuss about the real issues, the culprit likely will get away with it.

That would be the real crime.

Tony Lake's "rap sheet" is a mile long. Like so many others of his ilk, he had a "rough" upbringing on the "mean streets" of foreign policy: Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton. Poor, deprived lad! Lake also matriculated through the usual proving grounds for Establishment radicals: the State Department, Defense Department, Council on Foreign Relations, Carnegie Endowment, Institute for Policy Studies, Center for International Policy, Fund For Peace, etc., etc.

Crucial Questions

Any serious, credible confirmation hearings will have to rise above the farcical focus on jaywalking and littering and demand answers to the real questions at the heart of this nomination, such as:

• What was Anthony Lake's role in the infamous Pentagon Papers heist which so seriously damaged America's security?

• What was, and is, the extent of Lake's involvement with militant Marxist activists of the subversive nexus at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Fund For Peace (FFP)?

• What was, and is, the full story on Lake's activities with the radical one-worlders and Establishment Marxists at Alger Hiss' old haunt, the Carnegie Endowment?

• What is Lake's relationship with IPS extremist Morton Halperin, and why did they cochair a radical conference panel for the anti-American, pro-Soviet Center for National Security Studies (CNSS)?

• What was Lake's connection to Orlando Letelier, the notorious Chilean agent of the Soviet KGB and Cuban DGI in Washington?

• Why would Lake, who has spent his entire career associating with those who are attacking and undermining America's security, want to head our nation's premier intelligence agency, and why would any U.S. senator who takes his oath of office seriously even contemplate for a moment confirming such a nominee to head the CIA?

And these are just starter questions; many more are begging to be asked. A brief survey of some of Lake's career "highlights" should provide ample stimulus for many hours of intensive Senate interrogation.

Although it would be worthwhile to examine Anthony Lake's college student days and early Foreign Service career, for our purposes it will suffice to begin with an inquiry into his role in the illegal and sensational release of the Pentagon Papers, one of the most far- reaching security breaches in our nation's history. That one act had a dramatic global impact, contributing mightily to America's first military defeat, the resignation of a U.S. President, the radicalization of legions of students, and the demoralization of America's Armed Services. It was also an incredible intelligence coup and propaganda windfall for the Soviets and all of America's enemies.

Destructive "Leak"

Commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (CFR) in 1967 to assemble official records on U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers study team had access to many top-secret documents. Lake, together with Morton Halperin and Leslie Gelb, was one of the Vietnam Task Force leaders on the project, which was under the supervision of Paul Warnke, an Assistant Secretary of Defense. All members of that quartet were, or would become, (and remain today) members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), otherwise known as the "Park Avenue State Department." Gelb and Lake signed off on the release of the Pentagon Papers to Daniel Ellsberg (CFR), who, in turn, leaked them to comrades at the subversive Institute for Policy Studies and, eventually, to the New York Times and the Washington Post. All of these players — Lake, Halperin, Gelb, Warnke, and Ellsberg — soon became activists in the IPS network.

After quitting Nixon's national security staff in protest over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, Lake went to work on the 1972 presidential campaign of Maine's liberal-left Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie. When Muskie dropped out, Lake migrated even further leftward, joining the national campaign committee staff of Senator George McGovern's run for the White House. Thus it was that he first met fellow McGovernites Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton, who had taken time off from Yale Law School to run the McGovern campaign in Texas. But, alas, American voters nixed McGovern's Oval Office hopes — and Tony Lake's chance to be Secretary of State.

What more natural place to go from the staff of the peacenik presidential campaign than the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace? Problem is, most Americans would have a tough time reconciling to the Carnegie folks' idea of "peace." When investigators for the Reece Committee were looking into the Endowment's subversive funding trends back in 1954, they were shocked to find in the minutes of the foundation's trustee meetings the most blatant of warmongering intentions. It was clear that the Carnegie trustees viewed war as the most effective means "to alter the life of an entire people," and they asked, "How do we involve the United States in a war?" That was in 1911, a few short years before World War I. Toward the end of that war, the trustees dispatched a telegram to President Wilson, cautioning him to see that the war did not end too quickly.

After the war, the Endowment used its huge resources to fund a stable of "scholars" who would debunk critics of the Wilson war agenda, his diplomatic deception, and the League of Nations. War was going to be an essential instrument for teaching the peoples of the world the need for world government, a "new world order." By 1917 the Endowment could proudly report that it had begun "wide distribution of books, pamphlets and periodicals" that were proving effective as a "means of developing the international mind." This program would grow into an International Mind Alcove of books in libraries, including many books by notorious communists, socialists, and internationalists.

Hiss' Playground

Following his treachery in the State Department and at the founding of the UN in San Francisco, Soviet spy Alger Hiss (CFR) was hired to serve as president of the Carnegie Endowment. The man who hired him was John Foster Dulles, chairman of the Endowment, a founder of the CFR, and an inveterate internationalist who epitomized what Admiral Chester Ward called the CFR's "lust to surrender the sovereignty and independence of the United States." "Ever since its creation in 1910," wrote William H. McIlhany in his authoritative study The Tax-Exempt Foundations, "the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, second of five philanthropic legacies left by the Scottish entrepreneur, has remained the most outspoken and one of the most influential tax-exempt foundations promoting world government."

In 1965, this "peace" endowment drew up an incredible document entitled, Apartheid and United Nations Collective Measures, An Analysis. It was a complete military plan for an actual UN-led war of aggression against South Africa. When Tony Lake joined the Carnegie staff as boss of the Endowment's Project on Rhodesia, he helped put together a slightly softer version of that plan for the UN campaign against Rhodesia. He did not propose an actual UN military invasion force, but the toppling of the Rhodesian government through economic and diplomatic sanctions — which is exactly what happened. "Many believe that the future of the United Nations itself is very closely tied to the future of the sanctions program against southern Africa," Lake argued. Indeed, he claimed that Rhodesia's human rights abuses were so atrocious that it was in America's interest to boycott Rhodesian chrome and buy that strategic mineral so essential to our survival from that paragon of human rights virtue, the Soviet Union — which was only too willing to sell us inferior ore at a higher price.

The Senate will surely want to closely scrutinize Lake's involvement with the Center for International Policy (CIP) in Washington, DC. As an official consultant for the CIP during the 1970s, Lake was an associate of Orlando Letelier, who served on the CIP's board of directors. Letelier and Lake were also connected through their mutual involvement in the Institute for Policy Studies, a Marxist think tank with numerous ties to communist intelligence agencies. When Letelier was killed by a car bomb, incriminating documents found in his briefcase pointed to many highly placed people. One of those was Richard Feinberg. Feinberg resigned from the Treasury Department to avoid investigation into his own involvement with the Letelier network. Also among the briefcase contents was a letter from radical activist Elizabeth Farnsworth cautioning Letelier against mentioning Feinberg's name because that might jeopardize his reputation and career at Treasury and his usefulness to the cause. Yet Anthony Lake, who at that time was serving as director of President Carter's State Department Policy Planning Staff, hired Feinberg on at State.

Ms. Farnsworth also wrote admiringly to Letelier of the good work that "Bill Goodfellow" was accomplishing for the revolution. She was referring, of course, to William Goodfellow, the CIP director, who is a very bad fellow. How bad? Bad enough to stubbornly defend the murderous Khmer Rouge communists in Cambodia long after most leftists had decided the genocidal slaughter was just too obvious to deny anymore.

Still another sterling staff member with Lake at CIP was Susan Weber, a former editor of Soviet Life, the official propaganda organ published at the Soviet embassy for American consumption. In that communist endeavor, Ms. Weber was forced to register as an agent of a "foreign power." At CIP, she could carry out essentially the same task without the inconvenience of registering. Another CIP consultant was Edwin Martin, who was identified to intelligence authorities in 1947 as a member of a Soviet spy ring. When you start tugging on the CIP thread, you end up at the Fund For Peace (FFP), long one of the most openly pro-communist outfits in the country. The CIP was founded by, and is funded by, the FFP. A longtime trustee of the Fund was Louise R. Berman. And who is she? A longtime Red and hard-core Stalinist, Berman was the subject of extensive congressional investigation into communist activities during the 1940s and 50s. She was a contact and a courier for Stalin's NKVD (precursor to the KGB) and GRU (military intelligence) agents in the U.S. and worked with J. Peters, the Kremlin's top Comintern representative on the central committee of the Communist Party, USA. Berman is only one of many notorious communists and subversives involved with the CIP/FFP network in which Lake operated for many years.

Then there is the matter of Anthony Lake's relationship with the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), one of many groups which have spun off from the Institute for Policy Studies. On September 13, 1974, Lake and Morton Halperin cochaired a panel on "Covert Operations and Decision Making" at the CNSS' first conference on national security. This confab brought together a full rogues' gallery of the most militant leftists who had been attacking the FBI, CIA, local police, and all internal security measures for years. Halperin went on to lead the CNSS' sustained assault on federal, state, and local police and intelligence organizations tasked with legitimate internal security responsibilities. It is thanks to the success of these subversive efforts that America is now so vulnerable to terrorist attacks and is facing repressive police-state measures to deal with these threats.

Lake's longtime IPS/CNSS comrade Morton Halperin was also thickly involved for many years with infamous CIA traitor Philip Agee. It was Halperin who flew to London to testify in Agee's behalf when he was being deported as a security risk. And it was Halperin who wrote an apologia in the Washington Post defending the actions of Agee and his rabidly pro-communist publication, CounterSpy, after they had contributed to the assassination of Richard Welch by revealing the Athens CIA bureau chief's identity and home address. Working with Agee at his Soviet- and Cuban-backed Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate were other prominent confreres of Lake's IPS/CNSS fellowship, including Robert Borosage, Nicole Szulc, and Victor Marchetti. Marchetti, another "defector" from the CIA to the Marxist IPS agenda, was also a cochair of an anti-intelligence panel at the same September 1974 CNSS "Covert Operations" conference mentioned above that featured Lake and Halperin. It was this aspect of Halperin's vita which provided the main evidence to scotch his confirmation to the Defense post. Shouldn't these same troubling connections be a major bone of contention in considering the suitability of an aspirant to the highest intelligence post in the land?

Lake's vexing associations become all the more troubling when considering some of his activities as President Clinton's National Security Adviser. Take, for instance, Lake's secretive trip, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Shalikashvili (CFR) and others, to Cuba last year. What was the purpose of that trip and what precisely transpired? A videotape of meetings between these U.S. officials and top Castro officials was obtained by Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL). According to the congressman, distraught Cuban refugees meeting with Lake and Shalikashvili at Guantánamo "are shown being informed that they are to be returned to Castro's Security Forces." Cuban General Perez Perez is shown being honored by the U.S. team and "a detailed U.S. military map of the Guantánamo Base is given to Perez Perez." Clinton's new commander of Guantánamo tenderly greets Castro's henchman Perez Perez as "my General." And retiring base commander Admiral Haskins states that a plaque given to him by Perez Perez shall be placed in "a place of honor." Diaz-Balart charges that this video footage "reflects the private coziness of the Clinton Administration with the Castro regime." But considering Lake's numerous connections to Orlando Letelier, Philip Agee, and other Cuban agents-of- influence, the Guantánamo meeting may reflect something far more serious and sinister than "coziness."

According to Time magazine, on the day after he won re-election, Bill Clinton made a point of phoning Lake to thank him for his help in the campaign. Described in the Time article by a Clinton aide as "the 'heart and soul' of Clinton's foreign policy team," Lake is credited with orchestrating the strategy and writing the speeches that neutralized voters' concerns about Governor Clinton's lack of experience in the international arena. Under Lake's tutelage, Mr. Clinton emphasized centrist-sounding policy themes intended to allay fears of a Jimmy Carter replay. This is more than a little ironic considering that maestro Lake was the director of policy planning in Carter's State Department.

In Clinton's first term we can see clearly the policies of Jimmy Carter, carried out by most of the same revolutionary hacks from the Carter Administration. But this time — with the hand of Anthony Lake clearly visible — they have dressed their revolution in more moderate garb.

But don't expect to see anything overly critical of Mr. Lake emanating from Establishment media or political circles. They all have their sheet music from the same source and are chirping the same tune. Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland (CFR) coos that Lake "sparkles in intelligence and affability." According to Catherine Kelleher (CFR), a defense and foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, Lake is "a creative and imaginative thinker." Another Brookings scholar, Helmut Sonnenfeldt (CFR), a Kissinger protégé, is also quoted singing praises of the Clinton designee.

Repeating Dark History

That a man who has worked so assiduously to undermine our intelligence agencies and national security could even be seriously considered to head our premiere foreign intelligence and counterintelligence organization is mind-boggling. Have we learned nothing from the terrible, world- shattering consequences which resulted in decades past from our leaders' failures to heed the evidence concerning Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins, Victor Perlo, Harry Dexter White, Harold Ware, Armand Hammer, and other proven Soviet agents? Or the more recent cases of Aldrich Ames, Jonathan Pollard, and Harold Nicholson? Equally devastating have been the numerous cases of treason and treachery that have been made possible by those in high office who were "merely" dupes, sympathizers, fellow travelers, ambitious climbers, and fuzzy thinkers.

Wherever Anthony Lake may fall on this spectrum of possibilities, he is unfit to lead the CIA. But it is not likely that the U.S. Senate will thoroughly investigate and air his record, and then reject his nomination, unless the American public demands that Congress do its duty.

For those readers who wish to contact their senators regarding the Lake nomination, the address is: Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510

* * *

Anthony Lake's Biography in Brief

Born: April 2, 1939, New York City.

Education: Bachelor's degree from Harvard College, 1961; studied international economics for two years at Trinity College, Cambridge University in England; Doctoral degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, 1974.

Government Service: 1962-70, Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department; Early career included assignments as U.S. Vice Consul in Saigon (1963), U.S. Vice Consul in Hue (1964-65), and Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs on Henry Kissinger's staff (1969-70); 1970, quit government to protest the U.S. bombing of Cambodia; 1976, international affairs adviser during Carter transition; 1977-81, Director of Policy Planning Staff for the Carter State Department; 1993-present, National Security Advisor to President Clinton.

Non-Governmental Career: Advisor to the 1972 McGovern presidential campaign; Staff member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he ran the pro-communist, pro-Soviet Project on Rhodesia and helped launch the world-government-promoting journal, Foreign Policy; Cochair of a 1974 anti-intelligence panel for the Center for National Security Studies, a project of the Marxist and KGB-linked Institute for Policy Studies (IPS); Consultant for the ultra left-wing Center for International Policy (also called the Institute for International Policy), a project of the pro-communist Fund For Peace (FFP); Director of the pacifist, pro- communist International Voluntary Services; Professor of international relations at Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College; Member, Council on Foreign Relations.

Writings: The "Tar Baby" Option: American Policy Toward Southern Rhodesia (1976); Legacy of Vietnam: The War, American Society, and the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy (contributing editor, 1976); Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy (coauthor, 1984); Third World Radical Regimes: U.S. Policy Under Carter and Reagan (1985); Somoza Falling: A Case Study of Washington at Work (1990); After the Wars (editor, 1990).

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